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The Brussels Post, 1981-11-11, Page 21872 4Brussels Post BRUSSELSN Established 1872 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community To the editor: Leaders, mothers needed Box 50, Brussels, Ontario NOG 1H0 Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1981 Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of, Circulation, $13 a year 40 cents a single copy Authorized as second class mail by Canada Post Office. Registration Number 0562. Let us remember Remembrance Day 1981. In these days when the world seems in more • turmoil and upheaval than ever, this day should take on an even greater significance. There are many wars going on all over the world, but so far we have managed to escape a complete Third World War and let us hope it stays that way. Remembrance Day is,significant to men who fought to preserve peace in this world and that peace is one of our most precious gifts. In countries in the eastern hemisphere, war seems to have become a way of life, as though these people were dedicated to this as their lifetime job Nothing-no land, wealth, or power or religion is worth the agony and misery that war brings. Remembrance Day should help us to remember that what those men fought for--peace was obtained through much suffering and that it is a gift which should never have to be fought for again. , This letter is being written in regard to two very important items. The first is the need for leaders for the Guide company. There are at present nine guides and four Pathfinders. These girls are in many different stages of guiding. It is difficult for one or even two leaders to deal with their individual needs. Pathfinders is the next step up after Guides. These girls also need the complete attention of a leader. There- fore two leaders are not enough for this company to give the girls the help they need. If there are no additional leaders willing to help, the Guide and Pathfinders company will be forced to close in the very near future. The second item which needs immediate attention is the Mother's group for the Maybe out of plain curiosity or just because opposite charges attract, our distant fore- fathers gradually came down out of the trees when our less hairy mermaids slithered up out of the hormone rich "organic soup." Naturally some feuding developed among the new tenants of terra firma. Nothing serious mind-you, just adaptation and 'mutual adjust- ment problems that could be lived with, time unending. As' time went by, and just to spoil everything, along came some mental goliath- oufs, having indulged in the forbidden fruit (Gen. 2, 17) to declare that things happened quite differently and more simply; that we originated from an instant mix, plain old earth if you will. Strangely enough, from that time on, our species' respect for Mother Earth and her Brownies, Guides and Pathfinders. These people are the mothers of the girls of the above mentioned groups. The group is in need of mothers who will attend the meetings which are held when needed. At these meetings the leaders from the Brownies, Guides and Pathfinders attend and explain what they hope the girls will be doing and ask for our financial help. However, the turnout for these meetings are extremely poor. If more mothers do not show interest in either 'or both of the above groups, both will have to close. This shows a lack of interest in their children. The Mother's Group of the Brussels Brownies, Guides and Pathfinders products began to decline, now nearing the point of retribution amid a queer mixture of pride (Prov. 16, 19) of achievements and ideological.superiorty acquired in the hallow- ed halls of knowledge institutions. Knowing too much about non-essentials may well have inflicted mankind with the number one terminal disease - greed. Honesty with mutual respect still comes naturally. Capitalism, with all its resulting chaos, does not. To think straight, in a round world run by a lot of crooked men, becomes increasingly difficult. That alone, should behoove the superior gender to resist being "used" in so many capacities by those that are putting their distant forefathers to shame. W. Stephen Listowel iC IA We're too greedy It's tighten up time Canada Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Is your life a cultural wasteland? Do you do the same old things, talk to the same old people on the same old subjects all the time? Are you scared to take a risk, smile at someone you've never seen before, do something the neighbours will mutter about? Do yon want a decent tombstone, not flashy but dignified. Of course you do. You're a good Canadian. You believe in personal decorum, censorship, the family as a unit, and capital punishment. On the other hand. Do you go for a swim at midnight, sing a song at dawn, smoke marijuana, drink fairly heavily, march in protest parades, live in sin, abhor censorship and capital punishment, and contrive to do something that will offend friends and neighbours? Of course you do. You're a good Canadian. You believe in individual liberty, acid rain, dirty movies and sexual irresponsibility. If doesn't matter which group you belong to, or whether you're somewhere in between, you all have much in common. You despise the government, but won't elect an alternative, since you despise it even more. You are caught by inflation and high interest rates, whether you are a 60-year-old farmer trying to keep the place going, or a 20 year-old punk trying to maintain his habit. You are basically anti-American, though if. you were asked why, you could not give an answer that was articulate. You feel frustrated, in this land of wood and water, not to mention nuclear power, because, if you are getting on in years, you see everything eroding around you and if you are short in years, you see nothing but a stone wall between you and your aspirations. You wonder vaguely, if you're old enough, what became of the Canadian dream: "The twentieth century belongs to Canada." And if you read the papers and analyze the news,. you realize that, while Canada still has a high standard of living, we are very low on the totem pole when it comes to production, strikes, economic stability, peace, happiness and goodwill toward men, If you're very young, you don't give a diddle. There's lots to eat, warm, clothes, and the old man will kick in a decent allowance so you can feed the slot machines with their war gatneS. But if you're a young adult, just about ready to launch into "real" life, you're so bewildered about unemployment, and esca, lating university fees, and the. increasing shadow of the computer, and the wealth of choices of a future (all lacking in security) that you can become so depressed you drop out, or dive into a stream and fight against the current. This isn't a doom and gloom column. It's merely a look at our nation today. It is so rife with suspicion, fear of nothing much, anger over nothing much, that we are becoming paranoid. . From the Prime Minister, through the head of the Bank of Canada, right down to' your local alderman, you have lost trust and feel that the ship is heading for the reef with nobody at the helm. This is nonsense, of course. Canada has been going through this miasma ever since 1867, and before. Maybe the guy at the helm is blind-folded, and maybe we have scraped a few rocks, but the ship's bottom is still sound, and we haven't hit the big reef yet. If we do, we can always scramble into the boats and become the new Boat People of North America. We've had the French-Canadian separa- tism thing with us for generations, John A. MacDonald almost put the country on'ilte rocks, financially and politically, but he dared to take a chance, and had vision. We survived a terrible depression, and came out smelling of roses (and the stench of our dead young men), in two world wars. Cheer up, you dour, gloomy Canucks. When you have to settle for one meal of ground wheat' a day, and have to huddle around a charcoal brazier to keep warm, when you can whine, though few will listen, just as few of us listen to the people of the world who are doing just that, right now. Forget about the Yanks. If you don't like their culture invading us, turn off your TV set and get out your eskimo carvings. The Yanks won't invade us physically. Unless they had to, and there's not much we could do about that, If you can't afford your mortgage increase, you were probably over-extended in the first place. Get rid of that monster, with its swimming pool and rec, room and pitch a tent. Preferably in the local cemetery, to suit your mood. Pull in your belts. Dump that extra car, the bolt and cottage. If you look at it objettively, they're just a big pain in the arm anyway. Walk to work. Take a bus to the city instead of your gas-gobbler plus parking fees. Learn to do your own elementary plumbing and electric work at night school. Ladies. Get the knitting needles out and After 50 years of wrangling over the consitution Canadians would have accepted nearly any mess last week to get the argument over with. That it seems to have been a fairly good compromise was a bonus. Few Canadians really expected progress last week with Prime Minister Trudeau and the premiers of all ten provinces sat down in Ottawa to give consititutional reform one more try before the federal government went ahead with its pledge to act alone if\ it couldn't get agreement. Everybody said they were willing to compromise but it seemed like one more case of setting the other guy up as the culprit when things didn't work out. Everyone seemed to be saying: "I'll be flexible but he's got to give in first. ' ' So when the word leaked out that a compromise had been worked out between the Prime Minister and nine of the premiers, it seemed too good to be true. Some of the things that resulted from the compromise seemed a little too good to be true too. One major improvement in the plans over the Federal proposal was the new amending formula. Under the old proposal Ontario and Quebec would have had a veto over any constitutional change. Even if the federal government and all eight other provinces had agreed, one of those provinces could have scuttled the change. Now all provinces are treated the same. The change is approved if any seven provinces represent- ing 50 per cent of the population of the country approve it. The weakness on the other hand is that provinces have the right to opt out of some of the fundamental rights in the charter of rights by a vote of their legislature. The fact, however, that the Prime Minister insisted make lots of shawls, sweaters, scarves and wool socks. You did it for the troops overseas. And godawful itchy and ill fitting some of them were, but they kept us warm. Stop spoiling your children with allowan- ces. Let them earn their own money through odd jobs, or do without. Let's stop grumbling, and get back to 'the spartan, rewarding life, where ideas are more important than physical comfort. After you, he said. that this-vote must be renewed every five years will make provincial politicians much more hesitant about playing with the rights of their citizens. WON SUPPORT While some people claim Prime Minister Trudeau capitulated to the provinces on the amending formula, he won their support for his beloved charter of rights including the provision of minority education rights in all provinces, something many never thought they would see. It means that if someone from Quebec or New Brunswick whd speaks French moves to some area of the country where there is a large French-speaking population he can expect to be able to have his children educated in their mother tongue. Likewise, people from the rest of Canada moving to Quebec can expect English schooling for their children again. Well maybe. The dark cloud in front of our silver lining last week was that Quebec didn't go along. One could hardly expect that it would, given the fact that Rene Levesque has vowed to separate Quebec from the rest of the country. Even though he once said he would guarantee English schooling in Quebec when the other nine provinces guaranteed French schooling in their provinces, he now can't live with this. Quebec has been betrayed, he says. It's left alone again. His ragings sent shudders through a lot of Canadians who were just beginning to relax a bit after the defeat of his first referendum. Now, tired, as we were from 20 years to wrory about the future of Quebec in confederation, here was the man trying to break up the country with a whole lot of new ammunition. Well if the country can be broken up over Please turn to page 18 . Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston